<TITLE>20. Par -</TITLE>1L-175-143 Now watch, Paul was picking up sticks on the Isle of Crete, I believe it was. And he was in chains, and a snake, perhaps a mamba... That's a death bite; he should've fallen down right quick, dead. I don't know of no other snake would kill you that quick, unless it'd be a mamba.
And so he picked up this mamba, we'll say. It's a deadly bite; you just got about, just a few breaths left. When the mamba hits you... Or cobra, you got a fifty-fifty chance with the serum to live--with a black cobra. With the yellow cobra you got about eighty percent to die and about twenty percent to live; a mamba, you have no percent. You're just dead; that's all, 'cause you don't breathe but just a few breaths. It paralyzes the nerve system, the blood system, and everything else, and you're gone. See?

1L-175-145 But when--when this mamba that bit Paul in the hand, they said, "Well, that man is a--he's a wicked man, perhaps a murderer. Even though he escaped the sea, yet the--he could not escape death. The gods is going to revenge him like his--being a murderer."
Paul looked, and this snake hanging on his hand; he just shook it off, not all excited, "Oh, Lord, help me to do it." No. He looked at it, shook it off in the fire, went on picking up sticks as if nothing had happened.
They said, "He'll die just in a minute, because when that snake bites you, you're gone." After while the time passed, Paul didn't swell up, die, or no affect. They said--they changed, said, "He's a god that's come down in a form of a man." See?
He never said, "Bring me that snake," but the snake bit him. He never tempted God, but had faith in God to overcome the snakebite. You see what I mean?.

1L-176-148 So ever who you are among snake handlers, I... Now, if they want to handle snakes, that--that's up to them. See? I just don't see it in that manner.
Now, you say, "Well, them people's got faith." I don't say they haven't got faith, burn themselves with a acetylene torch and things like that, but (You see?) still that don't prove God.
I've seen Indians take a--a line of fire, three foot across and about forty yards long, when it's fanned with leaves until it's white hot (not special men, farmers), strip off their shoes, take little (the priests bless them with goat blood)--and take little hooks of fishhooks, and stick in their skin over their mouth, till they're one big mess of--of water, filled up in little like Christmas tree balls like that, ornaments, filled up, and big fish hooks that long sticking in their flesh (You'd imagine what that is to take in and out), and stand like that, and walk right out across that hot fire (and it just--just white hot, beyond red, white hot)--walk right down through that fire and turn right around and walk back, not even a scorch on their feet. And they don't even believe in our God. They worship--demon worship. See? So that don't mean anything. Just keep away... You just be a real, sweet, humble Christian, live the life, and then God will take care of the rest of it.

1L-176-Q-419 419. Brother Branham, what are the preachers going to preach on--going to preach on that don't go in the Bride? Their message now, the Holy Ghost, water baptism, and salvation, what will they preach on if they don't go in the Bride?
Well, you know--you know what will probably happen? I say this, now. I can't prove this, but I--they'll simply go right on preaching just like they have now, and people going on thinking they're getting saved; and the Bride will done be gone.

1L-176-Q-420 420. Is it right, according to the Word to practice birth control?
I told you I'd answer that privately. You that's got these questions, come to me privately.
Dear Brother Branham, we have a teacher that you know that the Scripture say...
Yeah, I got that. Just a minute now.
Brother Branham, at one time we had our name put on the book of a certain...
Yeah, I got that. It about how they had taken it off now, did they do wrong?


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